Smiths (Brightlingsea)
- Pork & Cracked Black PepperSmiths of Essex Ltd have a small shop in the coastal town of Brightlingsea, which is not that far from Colchester, and now a new shop in Maldon, Essex. Another bag of free sausages came our way recently from friends in nearby Thorrington...with a note this time, "Try these they're very good".
Again, it's difficult to review fully a product when you don't have all the information on the makings however the packaging did have more detail this time, and a price but no mention of meat percentage unfortunately. Smiths do make some good sausages so the quality of the ingredients is far from an issue.
Here's the ingredients: Pork, Breadcrumbs (Prepared From: Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Salt, Yeast), Salt, Spices (Black pepper, White pepper, Ginger), Dried Onion, Potato Starch, Sunflower Oil, Stabilisers (E450(i), E450(iii)), Sugar, Yeast Extract, Preservative (E223), Dextrose, Antioxidant (E300), Water. Pork-wise, locally sourced Essex pork is what we believe is used, and good old breadcrumb too in natural pork casings. Sorry peeps, these won't be gluten free!
The reference to black & white peppers and ginger spices looked interesting, so not wanting to drag our feet, in the pan went these very good looking sausages. Yes, yes you chefs and catering cooks out there, we know you oven bake your sausages, however there is a difference which we've proved in the look, succulence and losses between, oven bake and frying. (See our article: Fry, Grill, Poach or Bake)
So for consistency sake of "fair sampling" we pan fry.
Cooked up, yep the skins did the business very nicely to hold everything together and again there wasn't a great deal of residual oil in the pan. Very nice.
Texture was medium, and taste, yes sir! A pepper buzz and a really good "porkiness".
The price, £5.11 for 6 loose ones still isn't bad at all. As Oliver in the book says: Please, sir, I want some more.
Smiths (Brightlingsea) - Pork & Cracked Black Pepper
(Feb 2023)
Here's the
sample details:
120x30mm before cooking, 115x30mm
after.
93g before cooking, 85g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 4% &
weight loss of approx 8%.
£5.11 for 6 loose in a bag (512g) £9.99 / Kg
Note 05/11/23: we notice the current
price per Kg has increased (see
their web site) to £12.00/Kg. Hmm?
Smiths of
Essex Ltd
14 High St,
Brightlingsea,
Colchester CO7 0AE
01206 302939
Also at:
89 High Street,
Maldon,
Essex,
CM9 5EP
01621 853271
www.smithsbutcher.co.uk
Sunday: Closed
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 8am 4pm
Wednesday: 8am 4pm
Thursday: 8am 4pm
Friday: 8am 4pm
Saturday: 7:30am 3pm
You may also like to see:
Smiths (Brightlingsea) - Minted lamb
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(Brightlingsea) - Hogroast
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